Firearms have made significant advancements since the discovery of gunpowder in the ninth century. Although early firearm technologies like the musket of the 1700 and early 1800s offered a person the ability to strike a target at distance, they did not offer great accuracy. Additionally, these firearm technologies lacked the ability to reload rapidly, risking a person's life in a battle. In other situations, like hunting for example, many game opportunities were lost because of a slow reloading time. Thus, the search for a faster reload time and greater accuracy ensued.
By the mid 1800s, a single barreled “repeating rifle” with cartridges was developed. This technology offered a person reduced reload time with the incorporation of a lever, and greater accuracy by using cartridges. Box magazines were developed with the function of housing multiple cartridges providing a person with multiple rounds before reloading. These early box magazines held the cartridges in a vertical stack above, below or in a horizontal stack to the side of the firearm. In other words, the cartridges sit one on top of another, pushed up by a spring, in a single file. To incorporate additional rounds in these types of box magazines necessitated a longer box magazine. Eventually, these box magazines can become too long to the point of becoming cumbersome.
Drum magazines were developed in part to provide a greater cartridge capacity for a firearm while staying within a more compact area in relationship to the firearm. Drum magazines house cartridges in round or curved housings with a tension spring that pushed the cartridges around a curved track into a firearm chamber. The amount of cartridges housed within the drum magazine can be increased substantially while keeping a more compact profile.
Many firearms today incorporate a feature typically referred to as a bolt catch. The bolt catch is an apparatus that prevents or “catches” a firearm bolt from moving forward in a firearm chamber. The bolt catch is automatically pushed into the firearm chamber, after a final cartridge is discharged, by a spring loaded feeder incorporated in a typical box magazine. When a firearm operator reloads the firearm with a fully loaded box magazine, typically the firearm operator will manually actuate the bolt catch to allow the bolt to move forward into chamber.
Drum magazines used with a firearm that includes a bolt catch do not have the ability to actuate the bolt catch. Thus, when a final cartridge is discharged from a firearm, a firearm bolt will still move forward within a firearm chamber. During times when reloading rapidly with drum magazines is essential, having to pull the firearm bolt back manually before reloading another drum magazine puts an unnecessary and inconvenient burden on a person. Additionally, any person would not know whether a firearm is loaded or not loaded after discharging any amount of rounds from a drum magazine. Both of the above mentioned issues are safety concerns and need to be addressed.
Therefore, there is a need to incorporate a bolt catch actuator within a drum magazine. This feature will provide any person with the convenience of more rapid reloading as well as the added safety benefits of knowing when a firearm is loaded or not loaded.